HIST II SUNY at Binghamton Descartes and Locke on Innate Ideas

René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Third Edition, trans. Donald A. Cress, Hackett Publishing, 1993.   ISBN: 978-0-87220-192-7.

John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Kenneth Winkler, Hackett Publishing, 1996.

Put Descartes and Locke in conversation about a specific idea that really interests you. You yourself may be a third voice in the conversation if you like.

How?  Please write in one of four ways:

1.  Compose a diary entry by Descartes or Locke (or a Cartesian or a Lockean) that ruminates on the other’s thought, worrying and engaging it.  Be clear the entry stays focused on (obsessed by) one specific idea, and turns it over and over, building toward a distinct conclusion, entertaining ideas and objections along the way.

2.  Compose an exchange of letters (or emails, or text messages even) between Descartes and Locke (or a Cartesian and a Lockean) on a specific issue.  Be sure initial positions, and the grounds for them are clear, and be sure each comes to some distinct conclusion in light of the exchange, even if they don’t end up agreeing with each other.

3.  Compose a dialogue, formatted like a script, between Descartes and Locke (or a Cartesian and a Lockean) again on a specific issue.  Be sure initial positions, and the grounds for them are clear, and be sure each comes to some distinct conclusion in light of the exchange, even if they don’t end up agreeing with each other.

4.  Compose a standard college essay that takes a side in a disagreement between Descartes and Locke.  Have an introduction that tells what side you will take (and on what disagreement), a body that sympathetically presents each position but also explains why one is superior, and a conclusion that briefly restates what the paper accomplished